Author Archives: jakenels

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

The creature from the black lagoon. I don’t even know it’s from a lake, but when we used to go backpacking, we’d go swimming in lakes, and Bruce my brother would always taunt me that the creature of the Black Lagoon was behind me and scare the poop out of me. I think it looks like a dinosaur or something. I’d want to swim out of the lake really fast. I think it came from a movie but I’d have to look it up.

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I had heard of this creature before, and I feel like there may have been a children’s book about it at some point.

Rabbit Feet

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

I’ve heard people cut off rabbit feet for good luck. I remember when I was growing up in school in the 70s it was really popular for people to carry around a rabbit foot on their backpack or their purse. I can’t remember if it brought you good luck or what. Definitely not good luck for the rabbit. And they were real rabbit’s feet, so gross. But I think I wanted one.

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I had heard of rabbits feet being lucky before, but I had never actually seen it in person. I feel like this piece of folklore might disappear with the next generation.

The Bear Statue

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English

At Interlochen in Michigan. There was always a statue of a bear on campus, and it was a tradition for everyone just to pee on the bear. Usually just done at the end of the year cause it’s usually snowy during the rest of the year. Started by academy kids, no idea how it really started. I actually did it once. It was funny because sometimes people who didn’t know would sit on the bear, and it was really gross.

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There is a really weird tradition, but it makes sense that it would come from a bunch of kids at an away-from-home school.

 

Fighting Blueberries

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English

At my high school before I got there, there was a soccer team named the Fighting Blueberries because it was an art school and nobody did sports. And then a group of latino men wanted to reform it and named it the Rainbow Twinks. They were very proud of it. It was a tradition to give the soccer team a silly name every time.

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This is funny, as most of my experiences with high school sports teams have been pretty serious names.

Throwing Pennies

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English

At summer camp—there’s a horn solo in Liszt Les Prelude. People in the orchestra supposed to throw pennies at the horn player. Camp has been around since the 1800s. Heard about it from other people in the orchestra, but I never saw it happen.

This took place at the informant’s high school, Interlochen.

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This seems like a really bizarre tradition, and it’s kind of strange that it was talked about and passed along by students, but never followed through during my informant’s time there.